Fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated. It’s understandable how someone can fall victim to fraud which is why this post informs you on how to protect yourself from the many tricks and deceptions fraudsters use. We also explain your debt relief options if you are dealing with overwhelming debt because of fraud.

Common financial scams and fraud

E-transfer and payment scams

Fraudsters often get you to send money through an electronic transfer (e-transfer) like Interac, prepaid cards, and even Bitcoin.

Popular e-transfer scams include:

• the buyer/seller scam, in which you agree to buy something and e-transfer money only you never receive your product;
• the rental scam, in which a landlord asks you to pay a deposit to secure a unit, but then the unit turns out not to exist;
• the work-from-home job ad scam, in which you are asked to send money for training and supplies but are never reimbursed because the job is fake;
• The deposit or cheque to your account for too much money, after which the vendor asks you to send some funds back, only the original amount will bounce out of your account later by your financial institution.

There are many more examples of e-transfer scams. A commonality in all these scams is that you never meet the person face-to-face or that details are vague. Know that once the recipient receives an e-transfer or gift card, it cannot be reversed. Always exercise caution before sending money.

Debit card or credit card fraud

When using your debit card or credit, you are generally protected against unauthorized transactions if your PIN is well-protected. But you could be held responsible for financial losses if you did not properly guard your PIN. Unfortunately online fraud involving credit cards is common.

Avoid using obvious PIN codes like your birthdate or phone number, telling your PIN to someone else, even a family member, writing your PIN down near your card, and not reporting your card being lost or stolen within a reasonable time. Read your card agreement carefully so you understand your responsibilities as a cardholder.

You should always report any transactions you didn’t make or approve of to your bank or credit card issuer immediately so they can issue you another card with a new credit card number and cancel the old one.

Phishing, smishing and vishing

Be cautious about the validity of unsolicited emails and links (phishing), phone calls (vishing), text messages (smishing) and snail mail that purport to be someone else (often the Government of Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency) who then ask either for funds or personal identification information.

With this information, fraudsters can steal your identity and potentially hack into your bank account or other application, transfer funds, make unauthorized purchases, or take out credit in your name.

Financial recovery is often much more difficult in these circumstances. Your bank will investigate how the breach occurred but may not reimburse you if you can’t prove fraud. Fraudsters can sometimes log in through an IP address you have used, making it harder to prove that the funds were stolen by someone other than you. Always make sure to use your computer through a secure Wi-Fi connection and never share your banking or other financial information with anyone,

To add insult to injury, there have also been reported cases of hackers re-targeting victims by telling them they can recover their stolen funds. This scam is known as the recovery pitch. Scammers again pose as your financial institution and contact you with a way to recover your funds if you give them either an advanced fee or access to your computer so they can “restore” funds. Know that you should never pay an advanced fee to obtain a refund, nor should you let anyone, no matter how legitimate they seem, get access to your computer or any personal belongings.

Canada Revenue Agency / CRA Scams

If the Government of Canada or the provincial government has a program that impacts your finances, you can inevitably expect phone calls or text messages about CRA programs from fraudsters. Scams surrounding COVID-19 vaccines, CERB and CESB payments, climate action incentive payments, and grocery rebate payments abound.

If you receive texts or calls that say they are from the CRA, Service Canada or any other government agency, do not respond with any personal information or click on any link. Login directly to your MyCRA account or contact the agency directly yourself.

Emotional scams like romance or grandparent scams

Fraudsters always try to take advantage of your situation or stress, but it becomes easier for them when you believe family or emotions are involved.

In romance scams, fraudsters take advantage of your affection, professing a need for funds and playing on your love. In grandparent scams, someone calls and impersonates a grandchild or other family member in a crisis, often a car accident or threat of jail, and asks you to send money or gift cards to help them out.

Never let anyone guilt you into sending money, especially under duress. Do not give banking information, money or credit to someone you met online or have only a short-term relationship with.

Identity theft

Identity theft happens when a criminal obtains personal details like your social insurance number, bank account information, credit card statements, home address, tax information, and other sensitive data.

Protect yourself from identity theft and debit or credit card fraud with these tips:

1. If you get an email or text message from a bank or company asking for personal information, don’t respond. Contact the organization directly to verify that the communication did come from them.
2. Use strong, complicated passwords and don’t make them obvious or easy to guess, like using your birthdate, pet, or family name.
3. Set up alerts on your banking and credit card accounts. You will get an email or text letting you know of any activity so you can act right away if actions were taken by someone other than you.
4. Protect your cellphone with a robust lock code so it can’t be easily accessed.
5. Monitor your credit reports regularly for any unusual lending activity. The sooner you are aware, the sooner you can stop fraudulent activity in your name. You can also prevent damage to your credit score if you catch the activity early.

Advance fee loan scams

Advance fee loans are illegal in Canada, yet they continue to persist. We have met with clients who were victims of loan scams and faced worsened debt problems.

Advance fee scams involve a fraudulent lender promising to loan you money if you send payment up front to guarantee the loan, complete the application, or cover processing costs. Of course, after you pay the fee, there is no loan. These fraudsters prey on borrowers who have a low credit rating, need cash, and can’t get approval for loans from their bank. In Ontario, it is illegal for a lender to ask you to pay an upfront fee before obtaining the actual loan.

Investment scams and tax schemes

There are many types of investment scams and tax scams, but they all promise to make you rich with no risk.

Fraudsters target you with an investment scam using social media, online ads, email, text, or phone calls. They may create fake social media profiles identical to your friends or family so their messages appear legitimate.

Some signs of investment scams include being required to pay a finder’s fee in advance, being guaranteed a high return on low-risk investments, being told it’s a limited-time offer, and you need to act fast, and being pressured to send money. Beware if the person is unwilling to answer your questions or gives you evasive answers. If an investment sounds too good to be true, it likely is. Don’t feel pressured to act.

How does financial fraud impact your finances?

Being a victim of fraud takes its toll on you emotionally. You might feel embarrassed or guilty, and severe loss can lead to depression.

Unfortunately, financially the loss can be just as devastating, including:

• Loss of the original funds, especially if you voluntarily send money to someone via e-transfer or gift cards.
• Identity theft as a result of providing personal information to a potential scammer. They can then use your identity to attempt to access your accounts and even apply for credit in your name.
• A stolen credit card or unauthorized loans can hurt your credit score if you do not report the fraud and have the charges reversed.
• Unauthorized credit due to identity theft will also hurt your credit score. It can often take months or years to deal with the impact of a stolen identity on your finances and credit report.
• Losing funds through fraud can leave you unable to manage your personal expenses, resulting in the need to borrow funds to pay your bills. This can lead to debt problems if the amounts are large or long-term.

Warning signs that you are dealing with a scammer

By now, you probably have a general idea of the warning signs but beware when an unknown person and potential scammer:

1. Initiates contact by phone, text messages, email, or visiting your home.
2. Creates a sense of urgency to get you to act fast without thinking through their proposal or doing any research.
3. Poses as a credible institution like a bank, government official, or other professional service and asks you for personal information.
4. Requests that you wire them money via e-transfer, prepaid cards or gift cards.
5. Tells you not to share their offer with anyone else and to keep the discussion secret so that you don’t involve someone who may question their tactics.
6. Makes an offer that sounds too good to be true. It’s low risk with a high return, making it attractive.
7. Asks for payments upfront before giving you what they have promised.
8. Preys on your emotions and uses guilt as a trick to get you to act.

What to do if you are a victim of fraud

While I hope this never happens to you, here are the steps you need to take should you ever be a fraud victim:

1. Your first step should be to inform your financial institutions of the situation so they can better verify before lending to someone else under your name.
2. Change all your passwords, including banking, email, and other sensitive accounts.
3. Contact both Equifax and TransUnion to place a fraud alert on your credit report. This will not hurt your credit score. This alerts all creditors to be vigilant before lending under your name for any kind of loan.
4. You may also consider reporting to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at their toll-free number -1-888-495-8501 or through their Fraud Reporting System. This helps spread awareness so that others may stay safe.

We understand that no one wants to be a fraud victim. Unfortunately, with how clever hackers and scammers are these days, innocent people suffer financially and emotionally.

Dealing with debt due to fraud

While rare, we do see individuals in our offices who end up in debt because of fraud. Their financial problems can be because they lost their savings and turned to debt or because of debt taken out in their name that they could not reverse.

Filing for bankruptcy or making a consumer proposal to reset your financial situation may be necessary. If you incur debt from a scam, talk to a licensed insolvency trustee about debt relief options.

Another word of caution relates to unlicensed debt consultant scams. Unlicensed debt consultants prey on heavily indebted borrowers who are scared to speak directly to a licensed insolvency trustee or worried they will have to file for bankruptcy. They use this fear to their advantage and offer a comforting sales pitch about providing a better plan to eliminate debt. All they do is refer their clients to a licensed insolvency trustee anyway to file a consumer proposal, a common alternative to bankruptcy. But before the referral, they charge thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees, putting unsuspecting customers deeper in debt. Remember that you do not have to pay a fee to see a trustee.

If you have a lot of debt, speak to a Licensed Insolvency Trustee directly for proper advice and avoid the costly middleman.

The post Fraud Can Cause Debt Problems. Here’s How to Stay Protected. appeared first on Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc..

What is an advance fee loan?

Advanced fee loan scams have been circulating throughout Ontario.  A fraudulent lender promises to loan you money if you send a payment up front to guarantee the loan or complete the application process. After paying the fee, you never see any money from the promised loan.

How advanced fee loan scams work

A fraudulent lender may contact you over the phone or you may respond to an online advertisement. These lenders target individuals with bad credit and who have limited options for a traditional loan.

In an advanced fee loan scam, a fake lender asks you to pay an upfront fee to cover processing costs, insure the loan or guarantee approval. They may accept payment in the form of a wire transfer, prepaid debit card or even in the form of gift cards. These lenders prefer payment options that are not traceable, making it hard to find out who they are or recover the money once you realize you have not received the proceeds from the supposed loan.

Can lenders charge a loan fee? Yes, many lenders do charge origination or processing fees however they will deduct these fees from the loan amount.

In Ontario, it is illegal for a company to request payment of an upfront fee prior to obtaining the actual loan.

How to spot a loan scam

Loan companies in Ontario are required to be registered and licensed with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA). A complete list of Loan and Trust companies registered in Ontario can be found here.

Obviously, scam loan companies are not registered as found by the BBB in the case of Sherwood Financial Service.

In addition to confirming that the loan company you are dealing with is on the FSRA list, here are signs to help you identify the the loan offer you’ve receive may be a scam.

10 signs of a loan scam

1. You are required to make a payment up front
2. The lender accepts payment in the form of gift cards
3. You get an unsolicited call over the phone offering an easy loan
4. The lender is not registered in your province
5. The lender’s website cannot be found online
6. The company is not accredited with the Better Business Bureau
7. You cannot confirm the physical address of the location
8. Your offer has a quick expiry date
9. No credit check is required
10. Approval is guaranteed

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

What to do if you suspect a loan scam

If you have been scammed, contact local law enforcement and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501.

If someone asks you to make a payment before giving you the loan, stop the process right there. If you can’t confirm the lender via another source, either an online search of the Better Business Bureau and regulatory body, walk away. Seek a loan directly with more credible sources.

If you already have debt, and don’t qualify for a loan through legitimate sources, consider talking with a Licensed Insolvency Trustee about your debt relief options.

The post Loan Scams: Advance Fee Loans are Illegal in Canada appeared first on Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc..

Rafael Lourenco is the Executive Vice-President for ClearSale. ClearSale focuses on credit card fraud prevention for online stores. The company operates globally and Rafael says that although Canada has implemented more modern technology when it comes to card security, this advancement increases risk in a different area: card-not-present purchases.

“Card-not-present fraud” means exactly what the term says. It’s theft that impacts retailers online or over the phone, where the physical credit card isn’t present and the process of punching in a PIN doesn’t take place. According to Rafael, it’s a huge problem: An average North American merchant loses on average 0.9%, meaning 90 basis points of its revenues in chargebacks and fraudulent losses. That may sound like a small percentage, but retailers tend to only have margins from 4 to 8%. So, if they’re losing 1% out of 4 or 5, you’re looking at a 10% loss of profit just from fraud.

To counter this problem, retailers then implement stricter measures online, which can create a negative customer experience by blocking some orders they think are fraudulent. Unfortunately when they do that, eventually they won’t do it properly and they will block transactions that shouldn’t be blocked.

Retailer face two issues that can increase fraud risk for consumers:

• Lack of information: Retailers don’t like to make their customers complete many forms before making an online purchase because the experience should be fast and simple. But, the absense of more detailed information about you and your card makes it harder to verify that an online purchase is being made by the actual cardholder. Take for example the one-click buy approached used on a lot of commerce websites. Your credit card is loaded on the website, you don’t need to type it again, or to type the three digit CVV security code. This is easier for you but anybody that hacks your account online will have instant access to your credit card without having to provide this information either.

• Data breaches: Hackers gain access to data when large breaches occur the Equifax hack. When a fraudster has access to a combination of details, like a credit card and an address, or an email and phone number, then it’s much easier for them to pretend to be somebody else. Essentially, it’s identity theft and merchants face challenges in preventing these transactions, as they appear real.

ClearSale’s technology helps detect and prevent these types of fraudulent transactions by sending verification calls to customers to confirm that they made a purchase.

How can consumers help prevent credit card fraud?

While ClearSale focuses solely on helping merchants, Rafael believes that there are measures Canadians can take to help prevent fraud and improve overall fraud detection systems too:

1. Never give out your credit card information – not even to family. If you want your son or daughter to use your credit card, it’s best to make them a secondary credit card holder. This way, they’ll have their own number and spending limit.
2. Answer verification calls. You may receive a call on behalf of a store confirming your purchase activity. Rafael suggests taking these calls and confirming whether or not you made a purchase. He stresses that these are always only yes or no questions and that you should not volunteer any extra information yourself or be asked to do so.
3. Let retailers know when your transaction is declined. If you do make a purchase online and your transaction is declined, Rafael suggests contacting the merchant to let them know it happened. This allows retailers who may have setup more stringent security improve their own internal systems so that other, legitimate purchases aren’t also blocked.

For more details on how both consumers and businesses can protect themselves from hackers and fraudulent activity, tune in to today’s podcast or read the complete transcript below.

Resources Mentioned in the Show

• Tips to Protect Yourself From Identity Theft and Fraud with Kelley Keehn
• Clear.Sale website

FULL TRANSCRIPT – SHOW 186 Why It’s Difficult to Prevent Online Fraud

Doug Hoyes:   Over the years, I’ve had many clients who got into debt as a result of fraud. In many cases it was preventable. They lent their credit card to someone and gave them their PIN, and that person used their card and didn’t pay them back. Unfortunately, if you give away your PIN the bank won’t cover your losses. We’ve talked about that before on this show, including with Kelley Keehn back on show number 75, so I’ll put a link in the show notes to that podcast so you can go back and listen to it if you missed it.

But what happens when I don’t give my card to someone and fraud still happens? Today in Canada our credit cards have chips, so fraud at the store is much less likely than it was in the past, but what happens when you use your card to make an online purchase?

If I’m buying something at an online retailer, I don’t use my chip. I just type in my card number and other information. And that’s one reason why online fraud is more common than fraud at a store. It’s called card-not-present fraud, because of course the physical credit card and the chip is not present for that transaction.

So other than the fact that you don’t use the chip on your card when you make an online payment, why is it so hard to prevent online credit card fraud? How do merchants protect themselves? More importantly, what can you do to protect yourself when you’re making purchases online?

Those are the questions I have for my guest today, so let’s get started. Who are you? And who do you work for?

Rafael Lourenco:     I’m Rafael Lourenco. I am the Executive Vice President for ClearSale. And ClearSale does fraud prevention for card-not-present transactions, meaning that we avoid, we stop fraud before it happens, for transactions done mainly online, mainly with situations in which somebody’s buying but is not present on the process of buying. So companies like Wal-Mart, Sony, Chanel and a bunch of others are our customers, and we help them with this process of preventing from fraud.

Doug Hoyes:            And card-not-present is exactly what it sounds like. If I go to a bricks-and-mortar merchant with my card, I put it in the machine, I punch in my PIN. But if I’m buying something online, which is what you’re talking about, obviously my card is not present; I can’t punch it in. That’s what you’re talking about with card not present, is that right?

Rafael Lourenco:     Correct, correct. So the biggest difference between these two scenarios that you just described is the financial liability, right. So when it comes to transactions in brick and mortars, or card-present transactions as we like to describe, this financial liability for eventually a transaction that is not recognized by the cardholder is on the bank’s or the card issuer’s side.

While, when you’re talking about a card-not-present transaction, which is mainly online or modal or phone orders, then the financial liability, meaning the company responsible for paying the reimbursement that the customer is owed, is the merchant, so the company or whoever it was that let the transaction go through.

Doug Hoyes:            And so as a consumer, do I even care then? So I mean if it’s the bank’s problem, then what do I care? Is this something that as an individual consumer I need to worry about?

Rafael Lourenco:     Okay, so there’s a few optics. Obviously when you have your credit card involved in a fraud, there will be different levels of how easy it is to get your money back, right. So you’re going to call your card issuer as a consumer if you see a transaction on your invoice that you don’t recognize.

And if that’s a card-not-present transaction, it tends to be easier for you to get your money back. And the reason why is that the company you’re calling to, which usually is the bank, is not responsible financially for that fraudulent order. So they will probably only let you go and give your money back, and then ask for this money back from the merchant.

However, it doesn’t mean that it’s 100% seamless for you this process, because obviously you have to issue another credit card. Probably your credit card number and very likely other personal information about yourself is being used by a fraudster, so ultimately you are being involved in a crime.

So I’d say that financially speaking, in the super short term, yes, you shouldn’t care that much. But obviously, conceptually speaking, I’d say there is a lot more involved in a situation like that that you should be aware of as a consumer.

Doug Hoyes:            Yeah, so even though I may not suffer a financial loss, it’s still a huge pain in the butt. I’ve got to get a new card, go through all the hassles so, you know, re-set up all my preauthorized payments, whatever. So it’s something as a consumer…

Rafael Lourenco:     Yeah, correct.

Doug Hoyes:            I want to be aware of as well. So how big a problem is fraud, and specifically the kind of fraud that you’re dealing with, you know, card-not-present fraud? How big a problem is it?

Rafael Lourenco:     Yeah, it’s a huge problem, and mainly it’s a growing problem, right. And it involves many aspects of a business as well as a consumer’s point of view.

In the business point of view, you’re talking about mainly two losses, two sources of losses for a business. The first one mainly, and more obvious in the first layer, is the losses with fraud. So an average North American merchant loses on average 0.9%, meaning 90 basis points of its revenues in chargebacks, in fraudulent losses, right. So it’s a little less than 1%.

But if you look at this on the point of view of – it sounds like a small percentage, but if you look at it at a point of view of the margins, retailers tend to have margins from 4 to 8%. It’s not a big-margin business. So if you’re losing 0.9 out of a margin of 4 or 5%, you’re talking about more than 10% of your margins going away with fraud, with a specific type of loss, right. And that’s a big problem.

Secondly, what could be actually a bigger problem than that is many retailers will be afraid of losing this amount of money, and eventually will implement systems, rules, policies, whatever to block some orders to avoid this cost to happen. And when they do that, eventually they won’t do it properly and they will block transactions that shouldn’t be blocked. So somebody as a consumer may have been declined by a certain merchant because they implemented a system that is very conservative, and that’s a much bigger problem.

So talking about the United States for example, there are some researches that say that it’s a $9 billion problem, the problem of fraudulent chargebacks. While, if you talk about false declines that are those orders that should be approved but weren’t because of a fear of fraud, it’s a problem of $113 billion in potential revenue that is blocked, that didn’t really happen as revenue. So, mainly those are the two biggest problems on a merchant’s point of view.

Doug Hoyes:            Yeah, and obviously that’s annoying for me as a consumer, if I’m placing an order online and all of a sudden it gets blocked for some reason I don’t even know what the reason is, and I’m all upset and now I don’t like the retailer and I’ve got to go somewhere else. So obviously it’s a problem for everyone. So why is it then that it is so difficult to prevent this type of fraud?

Rafael Lourenco:     Well yeah, first you’re completely right. As a consumer, 34% of the consumers in the recent research report that they would never buy again in this merchant if a credit card is declined, especially because many consumers won’t have a clear view of why the transaction was declined and eventually will relate it to a credit issue, or to something that the merchant believes the person can’t pay or is not good enough for the merchant. So the feeling is not really good on the consumer.

Doug Hoyes:            What percentage did you say?

Rafael Lourenco:     Thirty-four percent report that will…

Doug Hoyes:            Thirty-four percent.

Rafael Lourenco:     Yeah, will never buy again. And another 32% report that would reduce their usage of credit card in this particular merchant. So, more than 60% of them will make some different behaviour after that happens.

Doug Hoyes:            Yeah and I can certainly understand that because, so I go online, I try to purchase something and all it says is declined, it doesn’t give me a whole reason for it. And so I’m thinking ‘Oh boy’, you know my credit’s bad or they think my credit’s bad.

So it’s annoying for me as a consumer, it’s upsetting, but yeah, now I’m really mad at the retailer, because who else can I be mad at. Or maybe I’m mad at my bank as well. But it’s a problem. And as a result, I can see ‘Okay, I’m not going back to that retailer.’ So it’s obviously a huge problem, so why is it so difficult to prevent this kind of fraud?

Rafael Lourenco:     Well, I think there are two main sources of reasons why it’s hard to prevent from this type of fraud. First is that, as time goes, as the technologies are developed, the merchants and the providers, just like ClearSale, they count with less and less information in that moment, right, because people are less and less likely to share information on a certain purchase.

So think of the purchases doing through your cell phone. You don’t want to fill like dozens of forms, or you don’t want to share a lot of information about yourself. You just want to buy something online. Sometimes you’re buying something through an app on your cell phone, and you don’t even want to type. It’s hard to type everything up.

So merchants are requiring less and less information from the consumers. And that’s a trend that I wouldn’t doubt, I wouldn’t fight against it, because everybody’s willing to make a purchase the easiest they can. So that they can sell more and the consumers can have a more convenient way of buying. So the absence of information is one of the sources of how – one of the reasons why it’s so hard.

On the flipside of that, you have the fraudsters also involving when it comes to their techniques. So the data breaches, for instance, are an important piece of this puzzle. So once Equifax or Target or any of those famous data breaches that happened in the recent years happen, then basically your data or the data of a big number of consumers is out there waiting for being used by someone, right.

So when a fraudster has access to a combination, for instance, of a credit card and an address, or an email address and phone number, then it’s much easier for the fraudsters to pretend to be somebody else. Because at the end of the day, when we are talking about this type of fraud, we are talking about identity theft, right. The fraudsters usually won’t use their own credit card obviously; they will use somebody else’s. And the data breach, as I said, is an important part of that because it’s easier from a fraudster point of view.

In a fraudster point of view it’s easier to access a combination of data, and therefore it’s easy to pretend to be somebody else. So if I have your name, your shipping address, your email address, then I just have to fill those items and I’m going to be pretending to be yourself, and it’s going to be hard for the merchant to avoid that or to understand that order as suspicious, because everything is matching.

Doug Hoyes:            Yeah, and I hadn’t really thought about that but you’re right, a lot of people now are buying things on their phone. It’s not like I’m going on my desktop computer and I’ve got lots of time to fill in all the different forms and everything. And the reason I’m doing it on my phone, obviously, it’s way easier; it’s an ease of use.

Do you think we’ve sacrificed some security for ease of use to make it easier, where there’s only one or two buttons I click now and now many? Is that a problem that we’ve got now, we’ve traded security for ease of use?

Rafael Lourenco:     I’d say that depends on your point of view, right. If you’re a merchant and you want to sell more, then obviously it’s a trade off that you may want to take. But at the end of the day, yes, you’re right. Like the less information you ask the harder it is to prevent from some type of fraud, so the more you need technology suppliers or whatever to develop and to design a fraud-prevention strategy that accommodates this new scenario.

But yeah, it’s two sides of the same coin. So I’d say that somehow some merchants may have sacrificed the security in the name of ease of use. For instance, the one-click buy is the perfect example. So when your credit card is loaded on the website, already loaded, and you don’t even need to type it again, or to type the security three digits, the CVV as they call, anybody that hacks your account online will have instant access to your credit card. So the one-click buy is the perfect example of something that makes your life much easier as a consumer, but opens a new opportunity for fraudsters.

Doug Hoyes:            And I want to come back to that but I also want to ask you then, is fraud more common with eCommerce transactions than with a normal bricks-and-mortar store. I mean obviously there’s no such thing as one-click buy when I’m standing at a cashier. Is it more secure in a bricks-and-mortar store? Or is it about the same?

Rafael Lourenco:     I’d say percentage wise, yes, the card not present is riskier, and especially in countries or regions or merchants that adopted the chip and PIN code for the orders, because it’s much harder to duplicate a credit card with a chip and understand or figure out what’s the PIN code, the password, versus just knowing the 16 numbers of a credit card and expiration date that basically is what is required for card-not-present fraud. So yeah, I’d say that card-not-present orders are riskier.

Doug Hoyes:            Now your company, ClearSale, operates across the world, right? You’re based in the United States, but as a Canadian, if I’m purchasing something online there’s a very good chance that your software, your program is being used by the retailer I’m using. Is that correct?

Rafael Lourenco:     Correct, yeah.

Doug Hoyes:            Okay, so what differences do you notice between Canadians and Americans? Is fraud more prevalent in one country over the other? Are there any differences in patterns that you see in Canada as compared to the United States?

Rafael Lourenco:     Mm-hmm, so good question. I think they differ in a number of dimensions let’s say. But the most important one, or the one that I think is easier to understand or to realize is that Canada’s difference from the U.S. has been using the technology of chip and PIN for a longer time compared to the U.S.

So October 2015 was the initial date in which the transactions with no chip in the brick and mortar were initiated to be on the merchant’s responsibility instead of on the bank’s responsibility for the card-present orders, for the card-present transactions in the United States. So I think the number one difference between the countries is that.

I mean when you’re talking about card-present orders, Canadians are much more used to the chip and PIN, which is let’s say a more modern technology comparing to the magnetic that the Americans are used to. And this scenario has consequences to the card-not-present orders, and the main consequence is that the Canadian market is a little riskier comparing to the American market. And that’s a fact that eventually you wouldn’t expect because of other reasons.

Doug Hoyes:            Yeah, I mean that sounds crazy to me because, okay, so we’re more likely in Canada to be using the chip and the PIN. And I know that for a fact because every place I go you put your card in, you punch in the code. And we’ve been using it for a lot longer than the U.S. You said it was only October 2015 that the responsibility switched to the merchant, so they’re obviously a little more proactive now. So if we have better security and have been using it longer, why is Canada riskier for or more likely to be subject to these kind of fraudulent transactions?

Rafael Lourenco:     Yeah, the thing is, when you make it harder for a fraudster to make a fraud in a card-present transaction, you kind of push those people because they are kind of professionals, right. They take their money from these fraudulent activities. So they will go more to the card-not-present orders.

So when I say that Canada is riskier, what I mean by that is that on card-not-present orders there will be more fraud in Canada comparing to the U.S. And my theory is that one of the reasons is the fact that the chip and PIN is more adopted, so therefore it’s harder to make a fraud in the card-present orders. So that’s why I think for card-not-present orders Canada’s is a riskier market than the U.S.

Doug Hoyes:            And it’s just because if I’m a fraudster I know that well, I don’t have a whole of hope of replicating a card, because I can’t replicate the chip and the PIN and everything, so I’m not going to put any effort into that. I will put all my effort into the card-not-present type of fraud, in other words online transactions and things like that. So it’s not that there’s any difference in the technology for card-not-present when it comes to Canada or the U.S…

Rafael Lourenco:     No.

Doug Hoyes:            It’s just that that’s where… And again, this is your theory. Obviously you’re not a fraudster so you don’t know for sure, but your theory is that that’s where they’re devoting all their attention, and that’s why it’s slightly more risky here in Canada than the U.S.

Rafael Lourenco:     Correct. There’s another small difference between those two countries that I may mention that is the likelihood to be a victim of international fraud. So when it comes to our customers, and we have several customers out of Canada and another good number out of the United States, you will see a larger attack or a larger percentage of fraud attempts coming from other countries besides the original country of the merchant in the U.S. versus Canada.

What I mean by that is that perhaps the U.S. merchants are more likely to be targeted by international fraudsters than a Canadian customer, which kind of balances with the other difference that I mentioned on the technology side. So both of them are targeted by international fraudsters, so fraud coming from international IPs, international credit cards etcetera. But comparatively speaking, the U.S. is more attacked or more attempted. There are more fraud attempts coming from international sources comparing to Canada.

Doug Hoyes:            Which kind of makes sense because the U.S. is 10 times bigger, there’s 10 times as many merchants. I guess there’s more to steal, so that’s probably another factor in it. Do you have any idea how much higher chargebacks are in Canada as compared to the United States then?

Rafael Lourenco:     So the numbers are not – they don’t converge necessarily. But combining all the different sources, I’d say around 20 to 30% riskier the Canadian transactions.

Doug Hoyes:            So Canadian transactions are 20 to 30% riskier for the merchants when you’re talking about card-not-present transactions.

Rafael Lourenco:     Yeah, versus America, yeah.

Doug Hoyes:            Versus America, for the reasons you just talked about. OK, so my final question then is, if I am a consumer and I’m worried about fraud, what should I do? And you’ve explained it quite well that, in most cases, if there is a fraud it’s going to be my bank, my credit card company that’s got to pick up the tab, or the merchant, so it doesn’t really affect me directly.

But if I do get defrauded, then at the very least I probably have to get a new card and maybe I’m not going to be using that merchant anymore, so there’s a lot of hassle involved. And who knows, it may end up having some impact down the line on my credit. I mean if I got defrauded by some family member and it’s still considered to be a legitimate transaction because I gave someone my card or something, then obviously I’m still on the hook for it.

But in the case of the pure types of fraud that we’re talking about – and again, I guess I’m speaking specifically about the card-not-present types of fraud – what as a consumer should I be aware of? What should I be doing? How can I at least lessen the risk that I’m going to have to go through this hassle?

Rafael Lourenco:     Sure, so I think there is a few quick tips, or a few advices let’s say I could provide. The first one is obviously the fact that sharing credit card information is never a good idea. So even if you trust somebody, or whatever relationship you have with somebody, sharing this information, it’s very personal information, and I’d say that it’s not recommended for you to by any means share this info. Especially take note of that on a piece of paper or any way that your credit card 16 digits is available may be used by somebody on a non-legitimate order.

A second thing that I would mention…

Doug Hoyes:            Just on that, so just on that point then, so if I want to share my credit card with my son, a family member or something like that, then I guess either don’t share it, or number two, I guess you could always get a secondary card with a completely different number, with perhaps a lower credit limit or something. So, ‘Here you go, you can use this card.’ It’s only got $1,000 limit, the most I can possibly be scammed for then is $1,000, but you don’t have access to my card and all my numbers.

Rafael Lourenco:     Correct. Yeah, it’s so easy to make a new credit card that I’d say that it’s much safer to make it a really personal info, right. So you have yours, your son or daughter has another one, your wife or whoever has a third one. So it’s easy to get multiple cards, and I think we should use that prerogative.

Doug Hoyes:            Okay. So don’t share your credit card information. I interrupted you there; what were your other pieces of advice be?

Rafael Lourenco:     So if you’re involved somehow – I think it’s possible to find online lists of compromised data – and if you’re involved somehow in those situations, those data breaches etcetera, then there will probably happen a phenomenon in which your orders, orders that you legitimately made online, or any other type of order or any type of transaction, they will be more likely to be flagged as risky, right, because somebody whose data was utilized or compromised in a data breach is more likely to be targeted by a fraudster than not.

So if you’re a consumer and you somehow have some – you think for some reason you were involved in a data breach, or your credit card or your personal info is out there available for fraudsters, you will be more likely to be flagged as a risky order, even if it’s yourself doing the order. Therefore, the merchant might eventually want to call you or to get in touch somehow.

So even though consumers in Canada and North America in general are not used to that process, perhaps you will receive a phone call to confirm some data, to match, to confirm if you were the one who made the purchase. And that might come from a phone from you don’t know, but in that case I recommend you to take the phone and not avoid this call, because that’s what’s going to help you receive your purchase at the end of the day.

So obviously, if you receive a phone call that might sound suspicious or might sound somebody making questions about your personal info, you don’t want to respond right away. You’re going to make sure that the person knows exactly what purchase you did. So for example, if ClearSale was calling someone on behalf of one of our clients, I would say ‘Hello, my name is Rafael. I’m calling on behalf of Walmart.com’ – just as an example – ‘and I want to confirm some data.’

If you’re receiving a phone call like this, there’s a chance that it’s a ClearSale call or whatever, or a call coming from a merchant, you as a consumer should, one, take the call. I think it’s for your benefit. And two, confirm, like wait for a confirmation on the merchant side first. So the question is not going to be what’s your birth date or what’s your credit number. The question will be more likely to be ‘Is the final four numbers of your credit card 4651’ or whatever, and then you’re going to say yes or no. And then the person on the other side of the line will know what good you just bought, how much it cost etcetera.

So receiving those phone calls is something that consumers are not, they don’t like usually, but it’s usually a part of a process to avoid the order to be declined. So my second tip is understand that it is a reality, the more the fraud rates grow, and the fraud rates are growing a lot, the more likely you are to receive a phone order like this.

Doug Hoyes:            And I guess the key in what you said there was you’re going to be answering yes-or-no questions. You’re not going to be actually providing information. And certainly here in Canada there’s been huge issues in the past with scams from Canada Revenue Agency, and I assume you probably have the same thing with the IRS in the States, people calling up saying ‘Oh yes, I’m with the government’ and you know ‘please confirm your Social Insurance Number or your Social Security number or something for me’. And obviously you never want to be giving that kind of information out.

But if you just made a purchase, in your example at Wal-Mart online, and someone calls and says ‘We’re calling on behalf of Wal-Mart and we are confirming that you just made a purchase. Did you just make a purchase, yes or no? Is this the last four digits of your credit card, yes or no?’ Those are yes-or-no questions. So your advice is yeah, you can answer yes-or-no questions, just don’t be providing any additional information. That’s the key there I guess.

Rafael Lourenco:     Yeah, correct. Exactly, 100% agree.

Doug Hoyes:            Okay, cool. And any other tips then for consumers to protect themselves?

Rafael Lourenco:     Well, I think the two ones that I just gave are good enough. And I’d say that my final comment is that any time you as a consumer understand [unintelligible 00:30:42] or have your purchase declined, which is the other side of the same coin, right. So sometimes you’re a [bit more fraud], but sometimes you are declined in a merchant that you did make a purchase but the merchant had the understanding that you didn’t, right.

So on one hand, yes you’ve got to try to understand that it’s probably part of a conservative fraud-prevention strategy. But on the other hand, I recommend and encourage anybody that suffers with that problem, that report it somehow to the merchant. Because at the end of the day, we want the market as a whole to be better than it is, right. If you as a consumer were declined on an order, then report to the merchant so the merchant will understand they made a bad choice. And further, for you or other consumers they will make better choices.

Doug Hoyes:            Excellent, and I think that’s a very good point. We want the ease but we also want the security, right. And so if there are glitches in the computer algorithm that’s rejecting your purchases, then yeah, by all means speak up. Talk to your bank. Talk to the merchant and say ‘Hey, I think you’ve got your algorithm tuned a little too tightly here’, and hopefully that can correct the problems in the future.

Well that’s fantastic. That’s excellent advice there Rafael, and I think that kind of helps us a bit more understand. I hadn’t really thought through the difference between a card-not-present and a card-present transaction, although now that you’ve explained it it’s quite objective.

So once again, your company name is ClearSale. And so if anybody is listening who’s actually a merchant, because that’s who your customers are, right?

Rafael Lourenco:     Correct.

Doug Hoyes:            It’s merchants, it’s banks, that sort of thing. And you operate all around the world, so not just in the United States but in Canada as well. So if there are any merchants who are listening to this and are going ‘Hmm, that’s something maybe we should consider because we seem to be doing more stuff online and getting hit with more fraudulent transactions’, what’s the website people can go to to find more information out about your company?

Rafael Lourenco:     So thanks for this opportunity to share that. We are on the website Clear.Sale. And down there you can see a lot of contents, not only the chance of get in touch with us but our blog.clear.sale is full of information, both for consumers and merchants, about eCommerce in general, about card-not-present orders.

So we’re a very content-driven company. And at the end of the day, we want to make the market better for everybody. So if you’re willing to have an online store or you already have it, and you want to know more about eCommerce and card-not-present fraud, blog.clear.sale is a good source of information, hopefully.

Doug Hoyes:            Excellent, fantastic. Well I will put a link to that in the show notes as well, but that’s a pretty easy address; Clear.Sale, S-A-L-E.

Rafael Lourenco:     Correct.

Doug Hoyes:            Clear, C-L-E-A-R obviously, Clear.Sale. And there’s lots of information there.

Well Rafael, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I think that’s some fantastic advice. Thanks very much for being here.

Rafael Lourenco:     Thank you, Doug. And I hope to talk to you soon. Bye, bye.

Doug Hoyes:            That was my conversation with Rafael Lourenco of ClearSale, a company that helps merchants around the world detect and prevent fraud from card-not-present transactions.

I wanted to have Rafael on the show because most of my guests here on Debt Free in 30 are guests that explain everything from the consumer’s point of view. That’s great, but learning about fraud from the merchant side of the transaction gives some great insights on how we can protect ourselves.

I agree with Rafael’s advice. Don’t share your credit card information with anyone. If you want to give someone else access to your card, like one of your kids or a relative, get a separate credit card with a separate account number for them, so that you can minimize your liability.

Second, you should decide what’s more important to you, security or convenience. If you buy a lot of stuff from one retailer, perhaps it makes sense to store your credit card and other information on their website so you can take advantage of one-click ordering, so you don’t have to enter your information each time. But of course that’s a greater security risk; so again, you should decide whether you are willing to take that additional risk for the added convenience.

No data is completely safe. And even if your bank protects you from fraud, if your credit card is compromised it’s a hassle to get a new card with a new number and re-set up any automatic payments. So avoiding fraud is always the best answer.

That’s our show for today. As always, full show notes, including a full transcript of today’s show and a link to everything we talked about, and a link to Rafael’s company and links to our previous podcast on fraud, can be found at Hoyes.com. That’s H-O-Y-E-S dot com.

Thanks for listening. Until next week, I’m Doug Hoyes. That was Debt Free in 30.

The post Why It’s Difficult to Prevent Online Fraud appeared first on Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc..

However, in a new twist reported by one of our clients, these fake tax agents are also providing what they think is personal information about you to appear more legitimate.

We heard from an elderly client who received a phone call from a fake CRA representative claiming that she owed back taxes. While they were talking to her they mentioned her bankruptcy and told her the police would be coming to pick her up if she didn’t pay. The fact that they potentially mentioned something personal about her situation made her worry even more that the call was legitimate.

Luckily we were able to tell her that mentioning this information does not mean the call was from a real CRA tax agent. We advised that these thieves could in fact find out a lot of personal information about her from legitimate means and will use this information to try to steal from her.

How scammers may know you

There are multiple ways that scammers can learn information about you:

• They can buy lists from websites, catalogues, memberships where you may have registered any time in the past.
• They can look you up on Facebook or any other social media profile where you do not have strong privacy settings enabled.
• Scammers often create fake online profiles sending you a friend request in order to access even protected profiles.
• They listen carefully to your own commentary, harvesting information from what you say and ‘guestimate’ from there additional facts about you.
• They search public record databases for additional information looking for possible matches with their existing database.

Given that these scams are resulting in millions of dollars in financial losses for Canadians, it is well worth their investment in time and money to obtain this personal information.

What to do if you receive a call

1. Be aware that the CRA will never ask you to meet them in a public place to receive payment and do not ask for credit cards, gift cards or wire transfers.
2. CRA will not ask for personal information including your passport, health card or driver’s license.
3. CRA does not leave personal information or threats on your answering machine.
4. If in doubt as to whether the call is legit, hang up and call CRA directly yourself.

Protect your identity

1. Never open suspicious texts or emails or attachments.
2. Never give anyone personal, credit card or any form of financial information over the phone or via email.
3. Choose long passwords that are difficult to guess. A good and fun password generator is available here.
4. Be careful about how much personal information you share on any social network, even those protected by privacy settings.

When in doubt, go with your instincts. Let the person know you are hanging up and will call the CRA, bank or charity, whoever they are saying they represent, directly. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

The post Scammers May Mention Personal Information to Look Legit appeared first on Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc..

A few examples of how these schemes work:

• Several Windsor clients had attended a seminar at a local employer at which they were advised of a loophole in the income tax act that determined they were all considered self-employed and as such could write off expenses like car payments, mortgage payments and utilities against their income. The consultant told the attendees that they could get huge refunds and they could file adjustments to their prior year’s tax returns for even further refunds.
• Some Kitchener clients have received advice about certain expenses that they could write off on their income tax return and receive large tax refunds as a result.

These individuals paid for this advice – in the case of our Windsor clients they paid a one-time fee of $500 to $1,000 plus 20% of the estimated refund.

The problem is that CRA disagrees with this interpretation and with thousands of participants in similar schemes or supposed tax shelters, CRA took notice and decided to take action.

In these cases, these individuals did not receive their refunds, or if they did, they subsequently received notices of reassessment denying their deductions. Worse, CRA then charged penalties and interest, including an interesting penalty called gross negligence. Canada Revenue Agency defines gross negligence as:

“Where a taxpayer has knowingly or under circumstances amounting to gross negligence omitted to report an amount of income on a tax return, they may be assessed a gross negligence penalty equal to the greater of $100 and 50% of the understated federal tax payable (and certain overstated refundable tax credits) related to the unreported income”.

In the Windsor cases, they had their returns filed by the advisor.  Most people just sign their tax return and accept the advice of the individual they hired to prepare their income tax return.  However, CRA’s view is that even if someone else completes your tax return year after year, you, as the tax payer, are still responsible for making sure it is done properly.

In our Kitchener office, these clients prepared their own returns and we have seen examples of tax reassessments ranging from $25,000 to $80,000, including penalties and interest, within the last year.

Dealing with the Financial Consequences of A Tax Scheme

Many of these cases are before the courts which means that CRA is required to refrain from collection activity. However, a quick search does not, as of January 2016, mention that the Court is willing to drop the gross negligence penalties.

• Strachan v. R. – FCA: Federal Court of Appeal upholds gross negligence penalties in Fiscal Arbitrators case
• Torres et al. v. R. – TCC: Court Upholds Penalties for Fictitious Loss Claims

In this last case, the judge was quite clear.   He stated “I am not unsympathetic to spouses and family who may suffer from the significant negative financial consequences these penalties will heap upon them by the actions of the Appellants: the Appellants’ penalties are indeed harsh. I however cannot pretend the specific 50% penalty called for by subsection 163(2) of the Act can be something less. That is only something the Government can consider.”

In other words, only the government, not the Court can waive the amount of penalty.

If the final resolution of these court cases falls in favour of CRA, it will then have the authority to freeze bank accounts, garnish wages and register liens against participants to collect on the unpaid taxes, penalties and interest. In some instances, these clients have incurred additional debts in the form of legal fees and other financial advisory costs.

For many, the ongoing battle, and looming tax bill becomes overwhelming and they want a way to deal with their financial situation and move forward. For our clients, a bankruptcy or consumer proposal became a way out.

A consumer proposal is a regulated process where the debtor makes an offer to repay a part of the debt and a consumer proposal can include outstanding tax debts, including the penalties and interest.  CRA will scrutinize the information they are presented with in a proposal.  They will want to see how much equity you may have in your home.  They will want to review your budget to make sure you could afford the payments.  They will want to know that you have learned a lesson and will not make the same mistakes again in regards to filing your income taxes.

Unfortunately, with thousands of Canadians participating in these schemes, it is likely that we will see a few more cases in our offices over the next few years.

Protecting Yourself from Potential Tax Schemes

What can you do if you are told about an opportunity to lower your income taxes or receive a sizeable tax refund?

If you are offered this deal that sounds too good to be true or is not completely credible:

1. Step back for a minute and see if it makes sense.
2. Checkout CRA’s website http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/alert/. They post notices of any suspicious schemes.  They don’t name names, but they give you an idea of the types of things to be looking out for.
3. Call CRA, explain what you were told and ask for their opinion – you can do this on no name business.
4. Call a reputable accountant. Don’t take the word of the presenter, or his or her designated specialist.

Recent tax scheme alerts:

• Telephone and email scams and more
• Claiming false business losses

More on CRA’s website for recent and past tax alerts and information about tax shelters in general.

The post Tax Scheme and Tax Shelters Can Lead To Bankruptcy appeared first on Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc..

Identity Theft and Fraud can lead to Significant Debt

How big a problem is identity theft and fraud?  That’s the question I asked today’s guest, Kelley Keehn, the author of Protecting You and Your Money: A Guide to Identity Theft and Fraud.  She told me that:

A third of Canadians have been victims of some type of fraud.  What was more curious is that two thirds of Canadians surveyed said that they knew of someone that was a victim of fraud, so even if it hasn’t happened to us yet, a lot of us know someone who was a victim of fraud.

Credit card fraud is a problem, but in most cases your credit card issuer will cover you if you can prove that you didn’t authorize the charges or give away your PIN.

Identity theft is another matter altogether, and it can take many weeks and a lot of effort to restore your name.

So what can you do to protect yourself?  Kelley gives a lot of practical advice, so here are are top tips.

How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft and Fraud

Kelley Keehn’s top tips for protecting your identity:

• Slow down and think: Ask why am I being asked for this information? When in doubt, don’t disclose it.  As Kelley says “don’t be the polite Canadian”. Ask why they need the information, how they will protect it, and how they will destroy it when they are done with it.
• Don’t pick up the phone if you don’t recognize the number. This is particularly true for seniors who may be more vulnerable to telephone scams (young people rarely talk on the phone, so they are less at risk to phone scams).
• Don’t click on any link in any email that you don’t recognize.
• Don’t give out your Social Insurance Number, except to someone who needs your SIN to report your income to Canada Revenue Agency, such as an employer, investment company or your bank. Your SIN is so important that CRA does not even issue SIN cards anymore, so keep your SIN private.
• Check your statements each month (or every week on-line), and notify your bank if anything looks suspicious.
• Make a list of of the dates your statements for each credit card and bank account arrive each month.  If a statement is late, call the bank immediately, because a fraudster may have re-directed your statements so they can use your card undetected.
• Check your credit report at least once a year.
• If you are at high risk, perhaps because you travel and use your credit card frequently, consider putting a proactive fraud alert on your credit report.  See links below.
• Shred everything with any personal information on it.  Even an airline boarding pass that only has your name on it, there is a scanner code that a thief could use to access your air miles account, which may give them access to additional information.  Shred or burn everything.

Read the Transcript for Show #75 below.

Resources Mentioned In The Show

• Kelley Keehn’s website
• Protecting You and Your Money: Kelley Keehn’s book, available for $9.99 from the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada
• Technocreep: The Surrender of Privacy and the Capitalization of Intimacy, a “scary” book written by Thomas P. Keenan and recommended by Kelley
• Placing a fraud alert – Equifax
• Placing a fraud alert – TransUnion

FULL TRANSCRIPT show #75 with Kelly Keehn

Today we’re going to talk about identity theft and fraud. And why are we talking about identity theft and fraud on a show called Debt Free in 30? Simple, over the years I’ve dealt with dozens of people who have debt. And when I asked them what happened they told me that they lent their credit card or debit card to a friend or family member and they used the card and racked up a lot of debt. Or someone stole their card of figured out their password and took their money and now they’ve got a lot of debt. I’ve done many bankruptcies over the years for people whose debt came largely from being defrauded.

Now 50 years ago if you wanted to steal money from someone you had to steal cash but today money is electronic so if you aren’t careful you can lose a lot of money really quickly. So, what can you do to protect yourself? Well, my guest has the answer so let’s get started. Who are you and what’s the title of your latest book?

Kelley Keehn: I am Kelley Keehn and my latest book is Protecting You and Your Money, a Guide to Avoiding Identity Theft and Fraud.

Doug Hoyes: Excellent. Well, thanks for being here Kelley. So, by way of a really quick bio, you ran your own wealth management firm before selling your practice and since then you published eight books. Is that the right number at the moment?

Kelley Keehn: That’s right yeah. Only eight got published.

Doug Hoyes: Written nine, so there’s one –

Kelley Keehn: There’s one just hanging out there somewhere.

Doug Hoyes: One we might get to see at some point. You co-hosted a T.V, you write regularly for lots of different publications like The Globe & Mail, you appear on T.V all the time, including I believe as the personal finance expert on The Marilyn Dennis show. So, a lot of our listeners will have certainly seen your work. But today I want to talk about the book. So, identity theft, what is identity theft?

Kelley Keehn: Right. Let me just back up and say a lot of people are familiar with credit card theft, okay? CPA Canada, the Chartered  Professional Accountants of Canada that published that book, they come out with a survey every year for three years. And their spring survey of 2015, I’m sure they’ll come out with another one soon, identified that a third of Canadians have been a victim of some type of fraud.

Doug Hoyes: A third.

Kelley Keehn: A third. What was more curious though Doug, was two thirds of Canadians that reported on this survey, said that they knew of someone that was a victim of fraud. So, even if it hasn’t happened to us yet, a lot of us know of someone. So, that’s really inconvenient. And depending on how much it is you may have to do an affidavit with your bank and blah, blah, blah and you may get a new credit card, you may be frozen, so if you’re travelling that really sucks but generally it’s not a big deal. The bank’s going to protect you unless, and we can talk about this later, you did something silly like have your pin be part of your SIN or your date of birth or something like that. There’s now precedence where you as a consumer have to know the terms and conditions to be protected. Okay, so that’s credit card theft, that also can happen with your debit card, inconvenient, not the end of the world generally.

Identity theft is a very different thing. My research with that book identified that it takes up to four working weeks to clear your name, that’s Monday to Friday, eastern standard time on your own dime generally making the calls, sending off correspondence whatever you have to do to say that wasn’t me that applied and got a $200,000 mortgage on my house. That wasn’t me that got a car loan for $80,000 and my mail was being diverted and we can talk about red flags in a few minutes. That wasn’t me. I didn’t even know it was happening. I didn’t know credit cards were being taken out in my name.

Now that’s the financial fallout but a lot of experts that I researched for the books told me some horror stories about other fallout such as this young couple, they’re strapped, they go on a Mexican vacation with their kid, barely made it to the all inclusive, the husband gets whisked off into a Mexican prison because someone used his Canadian passport or a synthetic one to commit a murder and he’s wanted in Mexico. She’s standing there with the kid. Like I don’t even have a dollar to call a lawyer or what do I do, right? So, it’s not just the financial fallout, it’s that people can commit crimes in your name.

There’s so much that can be done ’cause as you said in the intro, our lives, we don’t have money anymore, we have numbers, ones and zeros. We don’t have lives anymore, we have cyber lives. Identity theft can be devastating and we are solely responsible for protecting ourselves and it’s a little early in the year so I don’t have last year’s numbers yet for the number of hacks and how much they’ve increased. But I can tell you I’m sure the number’s up of how many companies are not protecting our data.
So, it’s not just our responsibility to shred and to not share our passwords and do all that, but how about the companies? How about the governments? How about these huge entities that are not protecting my SIN, my date of birth, all of that that is getting sold on the dark web and how do I protect myself from that?

Doug Hoyes: So, Identity theft then – so, how does it happen then?

Kelley Keehn: Yeah, how does it happen? So, it can start with credit card theft and be as something as simple as that. What you have to think about is that 10, 20 years ago when there was a hack or something like that with some kid in their parent’s basement, it was kind of funny and he or she was seeing how far they could get. Now it’s 100% criminal and generally it’s beyond our borders, it’s in Russia, it’s in China.

And people think well what do I have to hide? I’m not a celebrity, I’m just on Face Book o something of that sort and yeah everybody knows my birth date. Last week my kid’s soccer club as for their SIN. Like is that a big deal? Yeah, that’s a really big deal because all these key components of our identity, our date of birth, our full name, our driver’s license, our passport number, our SIN, these are key components to our identity that when put together and it’s not somebody in a boiler room in Russia that’s waiting and trying to get this information. Sometimes it is just like dumpster divers going and getting our information.

But generally it’s smart algorithms that are just sniffing little pieces, you know, there’s a hack over here, great. We got Kelley’s credit card, we got her full name, now she freely put her date of birth up on Face Book, we steal that over. Now somebody was irresponsible with her SIN, we got that and then they build a profile and then they can go start applying for credit in your name. It can also start from someone – sometimes it’s friendly fraud, sometimes in an ex-spouse, an ex-nanny, ex-assistant that heard your little secret password when you called your bank. And it wasn’t just your mother’s maiden name and started to gather that and then what they do is they call and then they say oh I got to change my address. So, what happens is you don’t even notice that the credit card statement didn’t come in in January or February. Oh, that’s great. No, your mail is important.

Doug Hoyes: So, I can steal your identity if I know five or six or seven different things.

Kelley Keehn: Or even just a couple sometimes. It depends what you’re trying to do. So, when we say steal your Identity, sometimes it’s not that nefarious. Sometimes it’s just, you know, I had your SIN and I had your full name and I went and applied for a car loan or I got a credit card of whatever. It doesn’t have to be full blown I devastated your whole financial life; it can just be little things. What you’re seeing to with fraudsters is they might apply for like a $500 credit card. Sometimes they’ll even go so far as to pay people’s credit card payments to get their credit score up an then go for the big kill, right? It’s a big business. Your data, your everything that we’re just freely giving away or not realizing companies are not protecting is putting us at great risk.

Doug Hoyes: So, the problem with identity theft is it doesn’t take a whole lot for me to do a whole lot of damage to someone.

Kelley Keehn: That’s right.

Doug Hoyes: And if that information is freely available, it’s easier to get obviously. So, I assume therefore the obvious solution for me is don’t make information freely available. Is it that simple?

Kelley Keehn: Yeah, it’s that simple, a little bit more difficult to tell your parents and our kids. Just got my mom a Smartphone, she’s 77, never been on a computer. She’s loving it, she’s on Facebook, she’s having a blast, she’s like – she has no – and I mean my mom’s a very smart woman, I’m not trying to paint her – but she is stereotypical, has never been on a computer, she has no comprehension was hacking is, what any of this is. How do I tell my mom, and really thank God she doesn’t bank online or anything but really try to help her what a phishing attack is, right, with a ph. Like god forbid she were banking online and sending email. Mom there’s no such thing as a Nigerian prince that’s trying to – she just doesn’t comprehend it.

Doug Hoyes: And she’s been dealing with the same bank probably for 50 years.

Kelley Keehn: Goes there in person, yeah.

Doug Hoyes: But then she gets an email from that bank that isn’t really from that bank. And she goes oh okay, it must be from Mary at the branch. I don’t know why she didn’t talk to me when I was there but okay sure Mary you forgot my SIN here you go, let me send it to you. And so they just don’t even think then that it’s an issue.

Kelley Keehn: Yeah, and some of your younger listeners might think oh I would never fall for that. How about newcomers coming to this country or how about where the bad guys are calling them up and saying this is the government of Canada, this is CRA. If you don’t pay this, here’s my badge number and here’s my blah, blah, blah. They’re coming up with new iterations all the time. So, if we think we’re so smart and we would catch it and we would never fall for it they’re always one step ahead. I know you’re going to ask me right away how bad it is.

Doug Hoyes: How bad is it? You’re right.

Kelley Keehn: We don’t have accurate numbers. This book launched a year and a half ago on Parliament Hill with the Canadian anti-fraud centre with the RCMP with members of Parliament. What the message was they believe that only 5% of all fraud is being reported in Canada. Because we feel ashamed, we feel embarrassed, how could I get duped? This is everything from a romance scam to the grandparent thing to the phishing attack to the Bernie Madoff Earn Jones kind of thing, right? We’re embarrassed. We don’t know even who to call. We know we’re not going to get our money back maybe so we do anything. And message is, you might be able to get your money back so you do want to call. But yeah, we don’t even know how bad it is because Canadians are just massively under reporting.

Doug Hoyes: So, it’s really in its infancy. I mean we know how many bank robberies there are, they’ve been going on for 150 years, the stats are pretty good on that. But this type of thing is so new that there’s stuff happening right now and we don’t even know what it is. So, the most simple thing you can tell people is if you don’t have to disclose it, don’t.

Kelley Keehn: Exactly. Don’t be the polite Canadian that just gives it away. Say, why do you want this and what are you going to do with it and how are you going to destroy it after I’ve given it to you?

Doug Hoyes: You identified that the most vulnerable people can be either older or younger people, older people because they didn’t grow up with computers, younger people because they’re very open and very sharing. Everybody puts everything on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and all the rest of it. So, what are the kinds of things you should not be sharing?

Kelley Keehn: Okay, so we can get into some obvious ones like you’re SIN. I mean I’ve done national radio shows where people are saying my Hydro is asking for my SIN. Why is your hydro company asking for your SIN? Why is your kid’s soccer club asking for that? Your SIN, your social insurance number is such a key component to your identity that they government has stopped issuing SIN cards.

Doug Hoyes: They don’t issue SIN cards.

Kelley Keehn: They don’t even issue a physical card anymore because it’s so sensitive. If you go on Service Canada’s website it’ll give you a detailed account of who is – not allowed, that’s not the right word, you’re legally obligated to provide a SIN to – anyone can ask for it. Who you’re legally obligated to provide it to is your employer because they have to report income. If you’re opening up something like an RSP, a TFSA, something that income has to be reported; therefore the government needs to have it or what have you or your employer. Let’s say you’re applying for a job, you do not to give your SIN, you haven’t got the job yet. Your bank actually and a credit card company, you’re not legally obligated if you are applying for a mortgage, for a credit card, something of that sort, you don’t have to give it.

Doug Hoyes: And that’s because there’s no income related to a debt I’m paying.

Kelley Keehn: Exactly.

Doug Hoyes: So, a SIN only applies to Revenue Canada.

Kelley Keehn: To income, exactly. Essentially it’s about income, about government benefits, something of that sort. It’s all about income yet we give that out freely. Some other things when it comes to protecting your identity and information even just physical safety.

So, for example I have this conversation with my nieces and nephews all the time at family gatherings, you know, they come over, they’re taking pictures. And I’m like let me check your phone and see – the younger generations are very technically savvy, they’re not necessarily privacy savvy. So, I’m like I want to see your phone. I want to see that geo tagging is shut off of your pictures.

So, for example some phones it’s by default, it depends how new or old your phone is that has a little GPS stamp on it that this picture was taken I’m from Edmonton Alberta and approximately the location and then they throw that up on Facebook. Oh we had such a great time at Auntie Kel’s house, do, do, do. A criminal building a profile goes great now we know where Auntie Kel’s house is. We saw that the kids went over and they ate pizza every day after school and they can build profiles on your kids and know where you are. Kel’s going to Toronto again. She just bought all this new stuff and everything and her husband’s like – great let’s go break into Auntie Kel’s house.
Like do you know what I mean? We don’t comprehend that it’s not necessarily just our friends looking at Facebook or social media or what have you. Those criminals that may or may not be within our borders are using this information to attack is in a number of different ways.

Doug Hoyes: And presumably Tweeting all the pictures of my vacation in Florida while I’m in Florida on vacation.

Kelley Keehn: With the entire family.

Doug Hoyes: Right, meaning I guess I’m not home.

Kelley Keehn: Right, exactly.

Doug Hoyes: So, it’s like okay –

Kelley Keehn: And if you have any back Facebook profile or anything of that sort, here’s something for your small business owners to be concerned about. Let’s say you’re on LinkedIn and your daughter is in a basketball tournament or something of that sort. And you have on your LinkedIn profile that you coach that and that’s kind of your volunteer thing or whatever you and you get this little email that says here’s Jennifer volleyball pictures or whatever from a couple of weeks ago. You click it not realizing that is somebody that has now installed malicious software into your computer. Maybe got into your system depending on how secure it was.

Because they just found out a couple of simple things. They went on your LinkedIn profile. They went on Facebook, saw your daughter’s name is Jenny, say that you said that you were the coach and they got in and now they’re whatever, stealing corporate secrets, all that type of stuff, keystroke, monitoring what you’re doing, watching you as you’re going online banking, yeah.

Doug Hoyes: Does that mean then I should never put anything on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, anything? So, where do I draw the line then?

Kelley Keehn: Yeah, I mean it’s within reason, right? You don’t need to announce anything to the world and if you do, you need to be more guarded. You need to be more careful.

Statistically these things are not going to happen to you but we need to be aware of it and have the conversation with our kids of exactly what are you saying, when are you saying it? Because a lot of times parents have no clue that their young adults or their teenagers are talking about. And they’re like yeah, that could affect me, that could affect my business. What kind of computer do you have at home? And are the kids logging onto it? Are their friends logging onto it? Are they going into websites where maybe they’ve installed some malicious software and now you’re going online and exposing your personal information?

The technical editor on that book, Jennifer Fiddian-Green, who is a partner with Grant Thornton and a lead forensic accountant, she really suggests that you do not log onto your online banking, although it’s safe, although the banks, the Canadian banks, are very strong, very safe, that if it’s a family computer where teenagers and everybody’s able to use it, don’t log onto your online banking there. Don’t even put that at risk.

Just some little steps to protect ourselves, slow down, know what mail is coming into your home, be careful what you put online and what you’re allowing to get out. [Four pin] and chip technology a lot of times credit card companies in Canada and it’s still happening in the U.S, would ask to see my photo. I.D when I was paying with my credit card. And I’m like why and I would argue and I would do all of this. But think about it, if there’s a camera that the cashier has behind their head, while you pull your credit card out –

Doug Hoyes: Yeah, a security camera.

Kelley Keehn: Right or if they put a camera there.

Doug Hoyes: Oh, okay.

Kelley Keehn: No biggie if they get K Keene and my credit card number and the expiry. Even if they got the back, I’m protected, I didn’t do anything wrong. But if I pull out my driver’s license, here’s where the identity theft comes in, I pull out my driver’s license, now they have my driver’s license number. My full name, they have my date of birth, my address, they have almost everything they need to do a lot of damage and they already have a lot to do a lot of damage.

So, who protects me then? Who protects me when that happens? So, what I do when that has happening or when I go to the U.S, I get white out tape and I put it over the key components of my driver’s license that’s none of their business. Like what does that take 30 seconds to do. I know it probably sounds a little anal to your listeners but because I travel a lot this is a risk that I expose myself to all the time. It’s just little things.

Doug Hoyes: I know my credit card was hacked. I started seeing purchases at the dollar store in South Carolina. I had not been to South Carolina. But presumably when I was in, I don’t know, New York or somewhere, somehow someone got something and a few months later they started to use it and they were all small transactions. McDonalds and the dollar store, $10 here, $15 there.

But I’m an anal accountant. I keep an eye on my statement pretty frequently and I thought well this is weird. Was I in South Carolina yesterday? Does anyone remember that? And I was able to phone the bank right away and they said okay no problem we’ll shut it down, send you a new card, we’re good. But if you’re not keeping an eye on those kind of things, you just don’t know.

Do you see the problem getting worse, getting better? Are we becoming more and more informed or are the criminals just so far ahead of us that we’re not making any progress? Is it even possible to say?

Kelley Keehn: Yeah, it’s tough. A friend of mine, Dr. Thomas Keenan, who wrote a great book and if you really want to creep yourself out it’s called Techno Creep. And I think it’s already a year and a half old. Definitely have a read and he’ll probably be updating this in no time. He tells me very scary stories when we get together. And I laugh ’cause I’m afraid, like really.

But yeah, they’re always going to be one step ahead of us. That’s why we have to be at least reading terms and conditions. We have to be slowing down, having conversations like you said with our kids. Like you want to be a cop and then you’re showing stunting things and taking pictures of that and putting it on.

He had a great quote, Dr. Kennan, and it was something like human relationships, what might have been your generation, maybe even my generation remembers, you know, you don’t like someone they come and go, whatever. What you put online lasts forever. If you put it there for one second and you oh, maybe I shouldn’t have – and you delete it, it’s still there. Someone can still get that, someone can go and get that. So, as soon as you’ve put it up there, you’ve announced to the world now you’re sitting at home maybe if you’re an adult you had a couple of glasses of wine and not thinking about it, you don’t know when that’s going to come back and haunt you.

And just realizing too that there’s profiles being built on us. I don’t want to get all Edward Snowden and all that kind of stuff, but Dr. Keenan informed me of profiles that are being built in the U.S without your knowledge. You happen to part next to this massive criminal every single day and you’re on a list that you didn’t realize and you can’t get a job. I asked him if profiles like that are being built in Canada and he suspected that they were.

Doug Hoyes: It’s like all these six year old kids on the no fly list.

Kelley Keehn: Right, exactly.

Doug Hoyes: Wait a minute, I don’t think I’m a criminal but my name gets on there. So, wow we’re getting even more scared here.

Kelley Keehn: Yeah, we don’t want to do that. ‘Cause there is stuff that we can do to protect ourselves.

Doug Hoyes: Okay, let’s take a quick break and then we’re going to go through the stuff specifically we can do to protect ourselves and then everyone will feel great at the end of this.

Kelley Keehn: Exactly.

Doug Hoyes: That’s what we want. So, let’s take a quick break and we’ll be right back on Debt Free in 30.

It’s time for the Let’s Get Started segment here on Debt Free in 30. My guest is Kelley Keehn and we’re talking about identity theft and fraud. And Kelley you freaked us all out because everything I put on Twitter or Facebook or in my garbage is going to get the criminal syndicates after me and I’m going to be ruined for life. So, okay let’s go through practically what can I do to protect myself then?

Kelley Keehn: Right. And there’s so many things that we can do. Number one we really want to slow down. We want to be careful when we’re clicking email. We want to be careful when we’re picking up the phone. Do we even need to pick up the phone? And these tips we need to have conversations with our parents and our kids as well, not that they’re picking up a home phone. They don’t do that.

Doug Hoyes: No, they don’t know what it is, no clue.

Kelley Keehn: But I know my mom still does. And just is this reasonable because the phone spoofing is really good. They can actually make it sound like the Toronto Police calling you. So, just slowing down, is this logical, would my bank ask me any of this? Being more careful of what we’re putting online, have a family conversation about it. Realize how important our information is, stop giving it out.

And then when it comes to full on identify theft, the easiest thing you can do is just check your credit report. If someone is applying for a credit card, a loan, something of that in your name, it will show up on both of your credit bureaus. So, in Canada there’s two main credit reporting agencies, Equifax and TransUnion. Make sure if you go online you go to the .ca’s and you would see there that somebody applied for this XYZ Financial or something, you’re like that’s not me. Now that will tip you off that identify theft is happening. Now it might be too late to really ward that off but at least you can clean it up.

Doug Hoyes: So, would you be doing that once a year, more frequently?

Kelley Keehn: If you’re in a low risk situation you don’t really do a lot, you don’t use your – you know, I would say once a year is fine. What you can is also get a credit monitoring service. You have to pay for that. But maybe if you were a high risk person like me that goes online all the time.
Doug Hoyes: Travels a lot.

Kelley Keehn: Has to do Facebook, has to do Twitter for their business, I put myself at risk. You might want identity theft insurance if you also feel that you’re at risk. But what you can do with both credit reporting agencies is put a pro active fraud alert on your account. This is not if you’ve been a victim, you’re just saying hey I want to be pro active, it costs $5 for each credit reporting agency and it lasts six years.

And what that does is it’s an extra layer of protection where if someone’s trying to get a cell phone in your name or something like that, the lender has to give you a call. It says on the file give a call so you want to use your cell phone number. ‘Cause if it’s you legitimately trying to get a bank loan you don’t want them calling home to authenticate that it’s you. So, that’s a great extra layer of protection. And everyone should be checking their report at least once a year to see if things are accurate even if you don’t require credit, at least to see if some things on there.

And then very lastly is making sure you know what mail is coming in, not very lastly I’m going to have one more tip, make sure you know what mail is coming in and when, especially for older people, people that vacation a lot, business people, they really need to be concerned about that. Because if bills are going missing that could be a first red flag too, that mail is being diverted.

And so, you could say a lot of younger listeners will say well, I’ve done everything digitally I’m online with all my bills, that’s great, my personal finance hat comes on saying make sure you’re checking those bills that you’re not overcharged and all that type of stuff. ‘Cause when we don’t get it in the mail, sometimes we forget to comb through and like you said look for those little purchases, a couple of dollars here, a couple of dollars there that weren’t you ’cause if you’re not noticing that, the fraudsters will go for the big kill.

And then very lastly shred absolutely everything. Everything, everything, even if it came in – unless it says Dear Occupant, if it has your name on it, shred it. A lesson that I learned, the one thing that I never shred that I do now because it came out in the news a couple of months ago was your boarding pass, there’s nothing on there. It just says K Keehn, it has my – it doesn’t even have my frequent flyer number, that’s all x’d out, but there’s a little bar code on it. And I would always just throw it in a trash bin at a hotel whenever I’m leaving a city not thinking anything of it ’cause there’s nothing there.

But now the fraudsters can use that bar code and get into my frequent flyer miles, find out safety wise when I’m flying. They can do silly little things like change my seat, cancel flights, all that type of stuff. But know when I’m coming in, knowing what cities so lesson to me, yeah there is absolutely nothing that you should not shred ’cause there’s more information on things than we realize about us.

Doug Hoyes: And when you say shred you don’t mean put it in the recycling bin.

Kelley Keehn: Yeah.

Doug Hoyes: That’s not shredding.

Kelley Keehn: That’s not shredding.

Doug Hoyes: And I mean we’re recording this in the winter and you have a home fireplace that’s fantastic.

Kelley Keehn: That’s the best shredder you got.

Doug Hoyes: That’s the best there is. But if not then literally rip it up or get a home shredder.

Kelley Keehn: Or take it to a shredding company. Just don’t throw it outside. You think oh I live in a nice neighbourhood, nobody’s dumpster diving, nobody’s doing that. Yeah they are, unfortunately they are.

Doug Hoyes: And that’s something you got to be careful of. So, there’s some fantastic tips there. I think the main tip what you said was think. That’s the main thing if you think why am I giving this out, that will probably induce you to keep your mouth shut when you need to. So, fantastic that’s great advice. Thanks very much Kelley. That was the Let’s Get Started segment here on Debt Free in 30. I’ll be right back to wrap it up.

Doug Hoyes: Welcome back it’s time for the 30 second recap of what we discussed today. On today’s show Kelley Keehn, the author of Protecting You and Your Money, a Guide to Avoiding Identity Theft and Fraud, gave us a lot of practical advice on how to protect ourselves and our loves ones from debt arising from identify theft and fraud.

Her most important advice is to think before giving out any personal information. Don’t give out your PIN to anyone and only give your SIN if you’re obligated to. Read your mail, check your statements and shred everything. That’s the 30 second recap of what we discussed today.
We covered a lot of ground today with lots of practical advice. And I know it’s hard to remember everything you hear so we’ve made it easy for you by creating a list of every practical tip that Kelley gave us today. Go to hoyes.com and search for identity theft and you’ll get a complete list of all of Kelley’s tips as well as a link to the audio file and a full transcript of today’s show and a link to where you can buy a copy of Kelley’s book. That’s h-o-y-e-s-dot-com for more information.

Thanks for listening, until next week, I’m Doug Hoyes, that was Debt Free in 30.

The post Tips to Protect Yourself From Identity Theft and Fraud with Kelley Keehn appeared first on Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc..

In light of COVID-19, fake CRA callers have also been demanding repayment for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB). There are official ways to repay the CERB or CESB income supports, but the CRA will never demand immediate payment by Interac e-transfer, bitcoin, prepaid cards, credit cards, or gift cards from retailers such as iTunes, Amazon, or others.

How to identify fraudulent calls 

Canada Revenue Agency has a webpage telling consumers to be aware of fraudulent calls. Their advice, if you get such a call, is to hang up and report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. CRA has even gone so far as to post a sample phone call so you can more easily recognize these types of phone scams and avoid being trapped by their threats and false information.

Here are some tips on how to identify and handle calls from possible scammers:

1. Don’t assume because they know your name that the caller is legitimate. It’s easy to find names and phone numbers in many online resources.
2. Don’t be alarmed by threats of a tax audit, a visit from the police, deportation or other scare tactics. This is what fake callers do to get you to react to them.
3. Never wire money or send prepaid credit cards or gift certificates to a request over the phone. The CRA themselves say they never ask for prepaid credit cards or payments like that.
4. Don’t offer personal information. The CRA does not ask for personal information such as your passport, health card or driver’s license.
5. Be on alert if they suggest you should keep the call confidential. You are always able to contact a lawyer, a licensed insolvency trustee or talk to a family member about your tax problems.
6. Rather than talking to the caller, tell them you are going to call CRA to verify then hang up.  Call the CRA directly at 1-800-959-8281 to see if you owe them money.
7. If you hear a message on your answering machine, be alert. The CRA does not leave personal information about you or your tax situation on an answering machine. The CRA also will not leave threatening voicemail messages.
8. Ignore text and social media instant messages claiming to be from the CRA. The CRA has stated that they never use text or instant messaging to communicate with taxpayers under any circumstance. 
9. Always check the CRA website for the newest scam approach. These scammers change their stories frequently.
10. Always be suspicious when someone calls you at home, threatens you and asks for money.

If you are scared because you do owe money for back taxes you can contact the CRA directly to discuss a repayment arrangement or talk to a bankruptcy trustee. Tax arrears can be dealt with by filing bankruptcy or a consumer proposal if you cannot work out a payment plan with CRA.

If you have already filed a bankruptcy or consumer proposal with Hoyes Michalos and are concerned about any call regarding old debts included in your bankruptcy or proposal, including tax debts, please contact our office. Our team is happy to help you understand how your tax debts will be treated as part of your insolvency filing.

The post Beware Fake Canada Revenue Agency Calls appeared first on Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc..